


Go Back To Sleep

by qualmsoffyre



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 00:31:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20751344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qualmsoffyre/pseuds/qualmsoffyre
Summary: Eiffel has a nightmare after returning from his trip on the USS Horrible Unending Nightmare, and Minkowski is sent by Hera to wake him up.





	Go Back To Sleep

“Lieutenant?” Minkowski stirred, but didn’t wake; she was exhausted from the day she’d had. Mumbling in her sleep, she turned her head slightly, hair loosely escaping its braid. 

Hera tried again: “Lieutenant?! Um….. Lieutenant Minkowski!”

“Hera….” Minkowski started, as her eyes slid open. “Hera?” She shook herself awake, ready to be alert. 

“Hera!” she gasped, finally understanding that someone had been trying to wake her. “Hera, what’s wrong? Hera! Tell me what’s wrong!” She was untethering herself from the sleeping rack, already (somehow) in panic mode. 

“Nothing’s wrong… exactly…” Hera began, “I mean, nothing’s exploding and we’re not in immediate danger…”

Minkowski sighed and glared, a dangerous combination, Hera knew, and she would have been more wary had she had a physical self that needed to be defended against her commanding officer’s anger. 

“Then WHY are you waking me up in the MIDDLE of the NIGHT???” Minkowski growled. 

“Umm…” Hera hesitated, and then said, “It’s Officer Eiffel, Lieutenant. I think… I think he’s having a nightmare. And I-I-I tried to wake him up, but it seems pretty bad. I was wondering if you maybe could check on him?”

Minkowski sighed again, although not in anger this time. Of course Eiffel would be having a nightmare. She had had nightmares nearly every night he was gone, and she wasn’t even the one on the “USS Horrible Unending Nightmare”. Just imagining what her friend was going through out there in space (if he wasn’t dead, certainly) was enough to terrorize her sleep for the past months. 

In fact, tonight, even though they had been boarded by mysterious SI-5 agents from Goddard, Minkowski had been sleeping dreamlessly. Her communication’s officer was back. Hell, her best friend was back. So it made perfect sense for Doug to be the one having nightmares, reliving his real-life trauma, while she slept soundly, all her problems (well, not all, but at least a major one) at the back of her mind for a while. 

Already making her way out of her quarters and down the hall to Doug’s, she said to Hera, “I’m on my way, thank you, Hera. Thanks for letting me know about Eiffel.” Hera didn’t respond, but Minkowski knew she had heard. 

Minkowski stopped outside Doug’s door, still hesitant about what the boundary was between her crewmembers and herself. But then, as she stood there, one hand on the control panel that would let her in, she heard noises from inside. It was Doug, alright, and he sounded both scared and in pain. 

She opened the door quickly, and found Eiffel tangled in a mess of his sleeping bag, a pillow, what she thought was three? blankets, and the tethers that held him to the sleeping rack. He squirmed and struggled against everything that was holding him down, and as she entered the room, his voice became clearer. 

“It’s cold! -- I need to eat -- wait, no, no please I don’t want to go back -- it’s cold in there -- please let me out -- no, no no, no no no nonononon--” and then a soft yell. Minkowski pressed a hand to her mouth, and felt her face growing hot. 

She moved closer to his bed, unsure of what her exact course of action would be, when a scream pierced the air. 

It was a sound like she had never heard before, and it broke her heart. No human should ever make a sound like that, and the fact that it was her best friend--well, that made it 100 times worse. She felt a tear escape from the corner of her eye before she could blink it away. Swiping at her face, she floated close enough to the sleeping rack that she could reach out and touch her shaking, whimpering communications officer. 

“Doug,” she said, gently, a hand on his arm, which trembled enough that she could feel the vibrations all the way up to her shoulder. “Doug, it’s okay. You’re okay. It’s just a dream.”

“No, no, I’m so cold,” came his voice, sounding somehow far away even though her face was a mere foot away from his. 

Shaking him slightly, and raising her voice, she tried again: “Doug, it’s me. Minkowski. You’re safe. Wake up. You’re here with me.” 

Still nothing from Doug except terrified mumbles. Minkowski shook her head, marveling at how he could still be asleep, even through all this terror. Resorting, finally, to what she may have considered extreme measures under other circumstances, Minkowski raised her voice, almost shouting so she could be sure that Doug would hear her over his own voice. “DOUG. DOUGLAS EIFFEL.” 

With a jolt, Eiffel sat up straight in bed, blankets falling everywhere, but the tethers still holding him in place. He struggled against them, matching Minkowski’s volume with his own yell of a wordless, haunted sound. 

His eyes blinked awake, and Minkowski could see the utter terror in them before he seemed to realize where he was, and who he was with. 

“Eiffel, I’m sorry…” she started to say, but was interrupted by a sound, that--for the third time that evening--sent a spear of anguish straight through her heart: a sob, from deep within the chest of Douglas Eiffel. 

“Minkowski,” he managed, between the heaving breaths. “Minkowski, you’re here.” He covered his face with his hands, breathing raggedly and erratically as he cried. 

Minkowski bit her lip; she wasn’t sure what to do or say here. She was still his commanding officer. Even though she was in his room. Watching him sob. She didn’t know how to deal with tears, not her own and not those of her friends. 

Eventually, after too much thought, she decided on placing a hand on Doug’s shoulder, creating physical contact, and what she hoped would be a tether to the world outside his dream. He still shook under her hand, face still hidden, but he seemed to lean into Minkowski’s touch. 

“I… I thought I would never see you again,” he managed to breathe out between sobs. 

Taking a deep breath, Minkowski began gently rubbing his shoulder. It seemed to be helping, she reasoned. “Doug, I’m here. And I’m okay, and you’re okay. Well, maybe not okay, but alive. And that’s really all that we can ask for at this point.” She pulled herself closer to him using the sleeping rack as an anchor point, so she could make sure he was seeing her face. She needed him to know that this wasn’t part of the dream, that this was real.

“Minkowski,” Eiffel began, “I’m sorry.” His breathing seemed to be steadying, and the sobs were subsiding. He wiped his sleeve across his face, smearing tears around his cheeks. 

Surprised, Minkowski’s voice came out harsher than she meant. “Why are you sorry, Eiffel? You did nothing wrong.” Then, muttered under her breath, because she honestly couldn’t help it, “This time, at least.”  
“I’m sorry I woke you up, and got you out of bed. I’m fine. I’ll be fine. You should go back to sleep,” Eiffel started to ramble. “You need your rest, cause we’re gonna have to deal with those guys, like I know they rescued me, but they’re honestly kind of scary, and I’m suspicious of them, but you’re the one who can do something about it, because you’re the commander, and I--we need you!”

“Eiffel, are you done?” Minkowski asked, not unkindly. He opened his mouth again, but no words came out. So he just nodded. 

“Listen, Eiffel. We will deal with Kepler and his crew. I promise you. But right now, my priority is to my crew. I am here to help you, and keep you safe, and right now, what you need is some company. So I’ll stay until you feel better. For real feel better, too. No lying to me. I know when you’re lying.” 

Cheeks reddening, Eiffel asked, “Soooo…. You’re gonna watch me sleep now?”

“No, Eiffel,” Minkowski sighed. “I’ll sleep here, I guess. If you have another nightmare, I won’t be too far away then, and Hera won’t have to wake me up. I’ll just sleep on the top rack.” She moved to grab some more blankets. 

“Wait, um, Commander?” Eiffel began slowly. Minkowski turned back to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “Will you--actually, I’m really cold and these blankets aren’t helping. Do you think maybe you could just lay here next to me? Not cause it’s weird, just cause people are warmer than blankets. I don’t know how I know that but I guess I do--”

“Eiffel, did you actually read Pryce and Carter while you were out in space?” she interrupted, a smile sliding onto her face. “Because that’s where that little tidbit is from.”

“Commander, I know I resorted to a lot of extreme measures out there while I was trying to survive, but never EVER would I read Pryce and Carter. I probably burned it to stay warm.”

Minkowski tried to hide the smirk on her face as she made her way back to Eiffel, one blanket in hand. She undid the tethers and redid them around both her and Eiffel, layering her blanket over both of them. 

Eiffel snuggled into her, and she could feel that he really was cold. And skinny. What had months alone and dying in space done to her communications officer? 

“Thanks, Commander,” he said as his eyes slid closed and he pulled his three blankets closer to his body. 

“Go to sleep, Eiffel,” Minkwoski replied. She watched his chest slow with even breaths of sleep, as she whispered to herself, “Anytime, Eiffel. Anytime.”


End file.
